Government Supervision. 51 
and Western territories than in the Northern and East- 
ern ones, where the development begins two hundred 
years later. 
The oldest attempts of controlling private forest prop- 
erty are found in Bavaria (1516), Brunswick (1590) 
and Wiirtemberg (1614). Here forest properties were 
placed either entirely under the supervision of the 
princely forest adminstration, or, at least, permission for 
intended fellings had to be secured. Later these restric- 
tions were considerably reduced in rigor (Bavaria, 
1789). 
In Prussia private forest property remained free from 
government interference well into the 18th century. 
An edict by the Great Elector in 1670 merely inveighs 
against the devastation of forests by their owners but 
refrains from any interference, and the Forstordnung 
of 1720 also contained only the general injunction 
to the owners not to treat their forests uneconomically. 
But in 1766 Frederick the Great instituted a rigid super- 
vision providing punishment for fellings beyond a 
special budget determined by experts. 
Church and cloister property had always been severely 
supervised, similar to the Mark and other communal 
forest property under the direction either of specially 
appointed officials or the officials of the princes. Finally, 
in some parts (Hesse-Kassel, 1711; Baden, 1787), the 
entire management of these communal forests was 
undertaken by the government. 
In Prussia, by the Order of 1754, the foresters of the 
State were charged with the supervision of the communal 
forests, in which they were to designate the trees to be 
felled and the cultures to be executed ; but as there was 
